Woman who escaped raging fire did not think she would survive

Woman who escaped raging fire did not think she would survive (Photo: KUTV)

West Jordan, Utah —

(KUTV) She suffered a broken wrist, elbow, pelvis, and has had surgery on her face; but Hayley Stegen is recovering days after she and her husband escaped a raging fire.

Last Sunday, from their second floor West Jordan condo, they heard a boom downstairs, went to investigate, and witnessed a stunning scene.

"The whole stairs were in flames," Hayley said, from her hospital bed at Intermountain Medical Center. "So, so hot instantly when we opened the door."

Hayley and husband, Shane, retreated into their bedroom. "Our room was filling with smoke really quickly," she said.

Shane dangled Hayley outside the window, gripping her arm, and leaving her as close to the ground as possible, but still more than two dozen feet above concrete.

"The smoke was coming out of the window so thick and dark," Hayley said. "His whole head was covered."

"You see movies, and you see fire, and you think you have way more time than they do," said Shane, who suffered an arm injury, but is no longer hospitalized.

Hayley, sem-conscious after she hit, woke up in the hospital.

"I've never been so scared, and in so much pain," she said. "I just remember feeling like I was like in another world or something, and I just remember continuing to tell myself that this is how it was going to be now."

West Jordan firefighters think the blaze was an accident, that a knob on a gas stove had been left on in the condo beneath the Stegens. The blast and fire killed 66-year-old, Judy Pedersen.

The Stegens have medcal insurance, but loved ones have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for what the young couple lost in the fire.

Hayley said she felt "somebody was definitely watching over" them through their ordeal.